Freedom for the oppressed … Freedom for the Shura Council detainees

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

Yesterday [11June] the judiciary of the counter-revolution issued sentences of 15 years in jail, a 100,000 LE fine and five years under police supervision against 25 political activists in what has become known as the “Shura Council case”. The judgement was passed without hearing a single witness or seeing any evidence.

This ruling shows clearly how the judiciary is working, and its blind subservience to the executive. The case began with the court opening its session in the Ministry of the Interior’s Police Academy complex, then saw judgements issued in absentia against three of the defendants who were attempting to attend the hearing – Alaa Abdel Fattah, Wael al-Samari and Hamada al-Nubi – despite the fact that they were present outside the court building. It ended with the sentences handed down by the judge, Mustafa al-Fiqhi, known for his lack of integrity during the 2005 parliamentary elections, and who was investigated by the counter-revolutionary authorities for no reason last year.

It is no great surprise that those who issued this judgement have based their ruling on a law which the British colonial occupiers put in place back in 1914, for all the regime’s claims to be resisting the whole world. Both imagine that their security relies on the disappearance of their opponents into jail.

These sentences are a clear message to those who were hoping that this regime still possesses even a small degree of intelligence: it will leave isolated any who oppose it. It is likewise a clear message to those betting on the intervention of the so-called international community, which was supposed to rise up against human rights violations in Egypt.

The regime imagines that jailing its opponents will increase their isolation from the masses and will dissuade them from continuing the struggle against it. But the clearest lesson of recent years is that the time when the regime could rule the people on its terms, and not on theirs, is gone and will not return.

There is no other way to win the demands of bread, freedom and social justice, except through direct confrontation with this regime and victory over it. The head of the counter-revolution is used to declaring that he ascended to the presidency through the blood of the martyrs. We affirm that the blood of martyrs and the suffering of the detainees, and the pain of the injured will be a curse following him whereever he goes, until he reaches jail himself.

Freedom for the oppressed … freedom for the detainees
The Revolutionary Socialists Movement
12 June 2014